As It Seems
by miss.Dbelikov
Summary: The future had seemed bright and promising – everything seemed perfect – but things slowly began to crumble. Relationships began to unravel and distance tore everyone apart, leaving voids in everyone. But when tragedy strikes and everyone is forced back together, how will they all respond? Can they work together, and repair the damage? Or will the misfits be pulled apart forever?
1. When It All Fell Apart

AN: Alright, here is another story. I know I shouldn't be starting one until the other is finished, but I seriously couldn't help myself. This story takes place after LS. The first chapter is just a few months after, then it jumps.

Full Summary: Everything seemed perfect. But the pressures of ruling a kingdom weigh down on Lissa and Christian struggles with his trust. Dimitri and Rose thought that they could make it through anything and everything. But their relationship begins to fall apart when outside circumstances pull them apart. And Adrian is struggling with everything. He doesn't know who to trust or turn to anymore, and he feels like everything he knew has been turned upside down.  
They break apart but tragedy pulls them back together. They have to work together and repair the damage, or else the fate of the moroi world will be over.

Tell me what you think!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything! It all belongs to Richelle Mead.

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**The Beginning:**

**Lissa.**

I didn't realize that it was ending until it was already over. I wasn't given the chance or the right to make things better or to try and change things. I didn't get the opportunity to beg or plead and I didn't even get a chance to make a sacrifice.

He had made the decision for me, deciding that it's what was best. He wouldn't even let me tell him how much I loved him and he wouldn't let me prove how important he was to me. He just picked everything up and left. He was here and then he wasn't – it's like I blinked and he was gone.

He erased himself from my life, leaving behind not a shred of evidence that he ever existed – much to the delight of everyone who disapproved of him.

I made attempts to find him at first – desperate and futile attempts to track him down. But they were useless, he didn't want to be found and even a Queen couldn't find someone who disappeared off the map.  
But what he didn't realize is that when he left, he took a part of me with him. It sounded clichéd and stupid even in my head, but it was the absolute truth. I knew that a part of myself was missing, that there was a void that could never be filled, a piece of my soul that vanished when le left.

I didn't realize what I was missing until a week after he left. I was lying in my bed one night, completely stiff while I stared blankly at the ceiling. Every night since he left I had cried myself to sleep, sobbing into my pillow until I finally drifted off. I thought that this night would be the same…except it wasn't.  
The tears that had been washing down my face since he left wouldn't come, it was like I had cried myself dry for the past week. The hiccups from my sobbing and the desperate cries weren't there, and I wasn't curled up in a ball like usual. And then I noticed for the first time, that I didn't feel anything.  
There wasn't any heart wrenching pain, there wasn't the burning in my chest that I had been feeling nonstop. There wasn't anything – I didn't feel anything – the only thing I felt was empty.

**The Distance:**

**Rose.**

I honestly thought that we could withstand anything. We had survived this past year and made it through hell together. We won what seemed like impossible battles and remained victorious even when the unthinkable happened. We had overcome so many odds and I thought that we could overcome something as simple as distance, given what we had already overcome in the past.

But we couldn't.

We tried at first – spending every free moment talking on the phone, skyping or arranging vacation times together. We tried to pretend that our charges didn't have a messy breakup, or that he couldn't tell me where in the world they were in case Lissa found out. We didn't mention how angry I was at Christian for doing this – for ripping everyone apart. We never said anything about how unfair this all was – we left so many things unsaid.  
But our free moments started to become far and few between, our phone calls were shorter and shorter each day, each quieter than the last because neither of us knew what to say. Soon we began ignoring each other's calls, because not picking up the phone was easier than listening to the silence on the other end.  
The days went by and I didn't even realize that we hadn't talked in weeks. I had unknowingly let the days pass by without hearing his voice. And as if on cue the phone rang and his name was on the call display, I felt my heart squeeze but I didn't know why. Was it because I missed him? Or because I had some weird premonition of what was going to happen next.

"Hello?" I asked, my voice strong despite my trembling fingers.

"Roza," He breathed, his accented voice sending shivers down my spine. I wished – not for the first time – that he was here. I wanted him to hold me and tell me everything was alright, that he loved me. But I knew that he couldn't be here – he would be with his charge and his charge was determined to stay away from mine.

"This is it, isn't it?" I asked, feeling a fluttering in my stomach. This was the end, the final lines of what used to be an epic love story.

"Yes, I think it is." He confirmed solemnly and I bit my lip, I was thankful he was doing this over the phone so he couldn't see the tears that began to roll down my cheeks.

"Be safe," I told him, knowing that we weren't breaking up because we didn't love each other, we were breaking up because it wasn't fair to one another. It wasn't fair to only see each other every few months and to have phone calls that only lasted minutes – that wasn't a relationship. "And know that I love you."

"I love you too," He told me, his voice filled with tenderness. It was the last thing he said before I hung up the phone.

**The Exile:**

**Adrian.**

I felt like I had been exiled. That they shipped me off to the opposite side of the country so that I couldn't disturb anyone at court, or so that I wouldn't cause any more damage to my family's reputation. They all told me that it wasn't like that, that I was here because of my bond to Jill – that staying close to her made it easier on both of us.

But it didn't change the fact that I was here in Palm Springs, while my life was back at Court in Pennsylvania. It didn't change the fact that I was isolated in California while my friends lived their lives without me back home – not that I had really associated myself with them lately anyway.  
After what happened with Rose, I distanced myself from all of my friends. It seemed easier to spend my days alone without their pity filled expressions.

Maybe, just maybe, this was all for the better. Putting me in exile with all the other people they wished to distance themselves from was probably the best choice they could've made. Having me, Eddie and Jill thousands of miles away meant that it was easy to forget us. After all we were disgraces right now – Eddie killed a moroi, Jill was a bastard child that no one wanted, and me? I was the late Queen's good for nothing nephew, with a control freak father and an incarnated mother.  
Maybe this exile was an opportunity, I thought. Maybe I could get the chance to drink away my sorrows on South Beach, while my friends continued to battle evil. I would still be the useless party boy, except now I wouldn't be in the way.

Because let's face it, I never had anything to offer before and nothing's going to change that.


	2. Bright Lights In Dark Times

AN: So here is another one. The first three posts (the previous one, this one and the next one) are all prologues of sorts - the real story begins at chapter four. I think it's important to get glimpses of what happened before the story starts, a recap I guess.  
Anyways, this one takes place a few months after the last.

Disclaimer: I own nothing! It all belongs to Richelle Mead

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**Struggling:**

**Lissa.**

It felt like an uphill battle – like every time I took a breath I had to fight for air, or every time I took a step, I had to struggle to get ground. No matter what I did it was difficult, but I think what was worse was that I had to pretend like it wasn't.  
I couldn't show anyone just how weak I was, especially not with everything going on. I had been Queen for less than a year, no one could know just how hard it was to rule a kingdom.

Of course, some knew just how hard it was – Rose obviously knew. Even without the bond she knew that each day was impossible to survive. But I couldn't look to her for comfort because it was selfish for me to do so. She was struggling with her own pain, she was trying to survive her own loss.

So I struggled on my own, pretending like everything was perfect, when really I still felt as empty and as lost as I did when he left me.

**Surviving:**

**Rose.**

Some days I felt like everything was finally alright, like I was finally over him. Other days, it felt like I had just hung up the phone after hearing him tell me he loved me.  
Each day was different and I think the only thing that kept me sane, was remembering his words on the phone. It seemed counterproductive – trying to get over him while still holding onto his 'I love you' – but I didn't care. I did whatever I could to get myself through the day – and this was it.

**Growing:**

**Adrian.**

I was growing and changing and evolving. You had to be blind not to see it – everyone noticed. It felt good to know that I was making a difference in the world, even if it was just an ounce. Researching Spirit's effects on everything was the least I could do – and I had been working on it tirelessly even after Belikov and Sonya left months ago.  
When I was first sent to Palm Springs I looked at it as an exile, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Palm Springs was anything but exile, it was more like… an escape.  
Here in the desert of California, I can finally be who I am. I have the freedom to explore whatever I want and be whoever I want. I don't have to put on a show or socialize and make nice with other royals. Here, my blood and reputation doesn't define me – I do.

I think about Pennsylvania still – it's always in the back of my mind.

I didn't know much about what was happening back there. I didn't hear from my friends back home often and they didn't hear from me – which seemed to suit both parties just fine. I missed them still, of course but my life was here now. I had a new group of people I belonged to now– everyone who had been cast out of our society – together we made our own dysfunctional family.


End file.
